I’ve been following the news coverage of the annual Consumer Electronic Show held last week in Las Vegas, and it appears that a lot of writers were underwhelmed by what they saw. Some items, such as large-format OLED television screens and a slew of “smart” TVs, turned heads, but few observers claim to see any huge breakout products.

However, there was one event display that commentators consistently mentioned in positive tones: Corning’s booth where it showcased its glass technologies. In other words, one of the stars of the CES show wasn’t really a consumer product but is enabling technologies in the engineered glass field.

Importantly, Corning used the CES to do a public rollout of what it calls Gorilla Glass 2. From the Corning news release:

James R. Steiner, senior vice president and general manager, Corning Specialty Materials, went on to say that

“[W]e designed this new glass to enable meaningful reduction in thickness without sacrificing the outstanding glass performance for which Gorilla Glass has become highly recognized. This glass, along with Windows operating system innovations from Microsoft, will help deliver exceptional beauty, performance, and toughness for new Windows PCs. You will see this early this year with Windows-based PCs which we expect to be the first in-market laptops designed to leverage the performance of our new second-generation glass.”

Corning also says that product qualification and design implementation for GG2 is underway with various customers, and a number of products containing GG2 are expected “during the coming months.”

GG is pretty ubiquitous, and the release claims that it is “the most widely deployed cover glass, used by more than 30 major brands and designed into more than 575 product models, spanning more than 500 million units worldwide. As one of the company’s fastest growing businesses, Corning Gorilla Glass is expected to reach more than $700 million in 2011 sales, nearly triple 2010 results.”

It’s probably not a coincidence, but Corning posted several new videos during the CES. I had hoped to provide a video specifically about GG2, and one was/is apparently in the works. I received a notice that a new video on GG2 had been posted on YouTube, but by the time I got around to try to take a look at it, it had been taken down by Corning. So, instead of a GG2 video, I am using a new video featuring Peter L. Bocko, Corning Glass Technologies’ CTO, who explains how the company foresees the market and demand for thin glass applications. Some of the new videos are: